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Jun 3, 2018 at 2:06 PMJun 3, 2018 at 2:06 PM

BELLEVILLE — It was one of the bloodiest and most gruesome killings in Belleville history — the stabbing deaths of hairdresser Michael Cooney and two of his clients, 79-year-old Doris Fischer and 82-year-old Dorothy Bone.

For years, Belleville Police Chief Terry Delaney, now retired, insisted Samuel L. Johnson did it. On Monday, St. Clair County prosecutors will set about the job of convincing 12 people that Delaney was right. Jury selection for Johnson's murder trial is set to begin Monday at the St. Clair County Courthouse.

But Johnson's attorneys, Tom Keefe III and Greg Nester, will try to show that prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to charge Johnson, much less convict him. They point to the fact that another man, Darrell Lane, was charged and went on trial for the murders as proof. Lane was acquitted by a jury in 2010.

"My client has long maintained his innocence," Keefe said. "We are looking forward to vindication by a jury of his peers."

Johnson, 52, was charged with murder in 2016 in connection with the killings of Cooney, Fischer and Bone. The three were found stabbed to death on March 2, 2005, in Cooney's home-based salon at 7813 W. Main St. in Belleville. Fischer and Bone were sisters.

Cooney, 62, a Springfield native, graduated from Griffin High School and operated hair-styling businesses in Springfield before moving to the Metro East area while in his early 20s.

"I am innocent," Johnson said in a jailhouse interview earlier this year. "If you get a conviction, you will be convicting an innocent man."

Despite Delaney's belief that Johnson committed the murders, no murder charges were issued at the time. Johnson initially was charged only with attempting to break into Cooney's house on Dec. 3, 2003 — more than a year before the killings. He eventually pleaded guilty and served a seven-year prison sentence.

During the upcoming murder trial, jurors will hear about the December day in 2003 that Johnson allegedly kicked in the door of Cooney's home.

Prosecutors also want the jury to hear that on Feb. 26, 2005 — four days before the killings — Johnson came to Cooney's house and demanded money.

Keefe, however, had argued that the jury shouldn't hear about Johnson's two encounters with Cooney prior to the killings. Keefe argued in a written motion that the stabbing attack on three people was a violent and deadly crime, unlike Johnson's previous encounters with Cooney.

Keefe, in a motion, argued that prosecutors want to use evidence of the first encounters only to "show a 'continuing narrative,' i.e. the 2003 attempted murder and the February 2005 demand for money are so intertwined with the March 2, 2005, triple-stabbing that to omit evidence of these other crimes would deprive the jury of essential information."

St. Clair County Associate Judge Julia Gomric, who will preside over the trial, decided to allow the jury to hear testimony about the break-in on Dec. 9, 2003, and about Johnson appearing unannounced at Cooney's house four days before the killings demanding money.

From jail, Johnson has told a reporter that he knew Cooney. He said he met him in a St. Louis antiques shop 10 years before the killings. But he insisted he had nothing to do with the murders.

Police reports obtained by the News-Democrat in 2010 showed that Johnson, who was unemployed, bought clothes and shoes, $200 worth of marijuana and treated his cousin to lunch and bus fare the day after the killings. Johnson also bought a 1994 Lincoln Town Car for $1,400 from a Pagedale, Mo., car dealer five days after the killings. Johnson later said he used money from the sale of shoplifted items.

Cooney was known to carry large sums of cash in connection with his estate-sale business.

Lane, the teenager who was originally charged with the killings, was connected to the case by a bloody fingerprint found on a seat of Cooney's Nissan Pathfinder. The Pathfinder was stolen from the salon property and abandoned in north St. Louis. A series of teenagers, including Lane, eventually got hold of the vehicle. An expert for the prosecution once stated that he believed the print could only have been made in fresh blood. Lane's attorney disputed that. Lane was acquitted by a jury in four hours.

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